Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I am very familiar with the work of the Community Foundation for Ireland and we have done some projects in Mayo with it, as well as some cross-Border projects. It has been a while now. Working in community development, sometimes with the application for funding there is much bureaucracy but I have always found the Community Foundation for Ireland to have accountability absolutely worked into its process while not being too bureaucratic. I encourage organisations here to avail of the really good opportunities under all the different strands that it has. I would like to see more use being made of that.

There are two challenges I will ask about specifically. One concerns the Government mainstreaming of projects as there can be some really good projects that just stop. What ideas do the witnesses have about mainstreaming them? What could we do as a committee to encourage the Government to match funding and mainstream projects so the benefits would not be just for the people in the initial project?

As part of the committee's work today we will have witnesses who will speak to the challenges for former prisoners, their children and grandchildren and extended families. In the course of the work done by the witnesses, have they done anything in that area? Is there anything planned for the future to support that type of work? It is quite shocking, having looked at the presentation sent to the committee, that such people have travel, employment and insurance restrictions. There are real civil and human rights matters that must be dealt with. We must deal collectively with those. I apologise as I must leave early because I have a flight to catch. If the witnesses address these matters they could then engage with Mr. Brady.